Where did it go so wrong??

[Michael Dugger]

A lot of stuff flying around here lately about American's both getting it and not getting it.  I'm going to try and put a finger on the "pulse" of all this mumbo jumbo.  

Where did it all go so wrong, or is it truly wrong?

American's don't seem to know diddly about fast and firm.  They want carts.  They want their bunkers to have nice clean edges and bright white sand.  The beer wench better be a local high school hottie and I don't want to see one divot in the fairway.  Speaking of fairways, both them and the darn putting surfaces better be emereld green, a golf course isn't suppose to be brown!!!

Now I think the notion/mindset I've layed out above pretty well describes the "average" American golfer.  It definately doesn't speak for a GCAer, of course, because we're superior beings (total joke)

Thus, where did we go so wrong?  
Is it technology?  
Was it the RTJ era?
Is it a similar phenomenon to the creation of the nuke?  In our effort to create better turf grasses did we fail to stop and think "should we".
Is a golf course in the desert an advancement or a failure?

I'm not saying it is any one of these or another.....just throwing out ideas.  

What do you think has led to the current mindset of the "American golfer?"
 

[Norbert P]

 I don't want to go on and on about our foibles but I think carts have negatively impacted the auld game the most.  They turned golf from a sport of exercise into a game of backyard relaxation.  A picnic with sticks. Then the catering at all levels got out of hand.

 (I've only played this game 7 years so I very well could be wrong but the mindset I see of a cartballer and a walker are antepodal.)

[JakaB]

We need to clean our own house before we clean America's.
As in...

Stop taking carts at our own outings...
Stop wanting to wear steel spikes so we can swing even harder
Stop putting down courses we have never played
Stop thinking only four guys in the world should touch a Ross
Stop wanting to play someones idea of a top 100 list
Stop thinking people considerate enough to keep their mouth shut don't know or get something
Stop thinking because we have played alot of courses we may have a clue how to build one
Stop thinking we know what other people should like
Stop buying anything Nike

[Marty Bonnar]

md

As a regular visitor to your eastern shores, let me tell you that I, for one, genuinely admire the qualities of American golf that maybe you guys find painful.

The whole idea of Cart Girls (or heaven forbid, Guys) is such a novelty to we Europeans that we find it quite endearing. Mind you, a cold beer on a hot Florida day could be served by a toothless old crone and we'd find it enchanting!!

'Over-designed' golf courses or 'finely-tuned' turf grass choice is something only we 'higher beings' are concerned with. Let the vacation golfer have a nice day is what I say....

American golf is American golf - we are neither compelled nor obligated to love it or loathe it. Some of us want to 'do' it, some don't. Don't kick youselves or lose sleep about that - in the words of Wee Jim, just hit the Ball...

FBD.

[Don_Mahaffey]

I think the average American golfer might think some here on GCA take themselves a little too serious. The world of golf will not end because 4 friends want to ride and play a game while enjoying a few beverages. One thing you can't say about American golf is that it doesn't offer choices. Choose to play where you want, how you want, and with whom you want. Take it easy on those who might choose differently.

[questionmark]

The reason for carts is housing development golf which means the course gets whatever land is left over, much of it disconnected and reuiring long transits from tee to green. Carts at one course became a marketing tool, requiring carts at another....ad infinitem.

So, lets all berate housing development golf, even though it provides jobs, recreation and relaxation for some. Some of you guys should lighten up a little.

mysterion

[Marty Bonnar]

Too right, Don,
The beauty of American golf (at least for us foreigners) is the very fact that there is infinite variety. We survive on a diet of similarity in our home nations so when we visit the US it is actually refreshing to observe this 'choice'.
I am embarassed when I think of some of the crap service I have had at many Scottish golf courses. If foreign golfers - and I certainly include US guys - think some of the service they've had here is typical, I really despair...

FBD.

[A_Clay_Man]

I think in 1980 when interest rates topped out, set up the climate for golf and made other RE ventures more doable.
As I've hinted at before ahhmmm, there belongs much blame to the individual who was able to fleece ridiculous green fees while taking every personal touch out of the experience and making it Corporate golf.
 As soon as those model were succesful every dick, tom and harry was building these CCFAD"S and housing prisons. So the gca went wrong because each project suffered from all the tensions that come of modern timetables and lost that personal touch and feel that makes great, not just o.k.

Q?- They not only employed people when then were viable but the repo-lawyers probably got a job or two, ayhuh?

[Mike Hendren]

Answer:  With the demise of the leisure suit, thereby significantly reducing the demand for polyester.  Only a man who truly loved the game would be caught dead in plaid polyester Sans-A-Belt slacks, stiff collared shirt and white belt (with apologies to Bernhard Langer).  The stuff was great for walking.  

In fact, our fraternity had a $50 fine for anybody caught in a leisure suit and shiny "sperm" shirt.  Many freshman were victimized by the whooping "leisure alert" their first year on campus.

Regards,

Mike  

[JakaB]

While watching the British Open I came to the conclusion that the very people who brought this game to the Americas dumbed it down from the very beginning.   This country has all the resources and land to create a course as great as any in the British Isles and we have fallen short from the very start...If the problem was created in the 80's it was the 1880's.   Americas greatest modern architects are just now starting to find our way...it gets better every day.

[Marty Bonnar]

Aye, but was her Polyester suit up to scratch...?

FBD.

[Michael Dugger]

Unlike some I like to keep up with threads I start.  

Thank you to all for replying.
I really like what aclayman had to say.  This is the sort of thing that I'm looking for.  

although I like FBD, funny stuff coming from some of you guys.  Don't get me wrong, I demand a hottie in the beer cart.  Points against if she's dumpy

[Paul_Turner]

Too much cash.

Mike

Loitering with intent- From SH-I was drunk? the best accusation I ever got!

[Mike Hendren]

Paul,  

You are quite the wordsmith.  One thing American's don't get is the marvelous command of the English language you so capably demonstrate.  I hope you do not mind my co-opting your phrase - it's one of my all time favorites.

BTW,

I'd love to see some of your handiwork with that new-fangled camera while at SH.  Please e-mail a few if you are so inclined.  

Regards,

Mike

[Gene Greco]

"Loitering with intent"

Paul:

       We were hollering over this one! Was it the beer? Or Hendren's deadpan delivery? Both!

[RJ_Daley]

I also think Adam sketches out a scene that fostered the wrong landscape in GCA.  The need to promote housing sales as the profit motive and vehicle with the GC development as simply the ammenity - not the central focus.  Put too many bells and whistles on the GC design for eyecandy to feature the homes became a run-away escalation of superfluous design.  The color green with blinding white squiggly yet semetrical lined bunkers and glistening waters all fit the Better Homes and Gardens model.  

Generally today, when a group of golfers get together and plan a true golf club without the pre-construction assumption that homesites need to be incorporated to make the financials work, we still get better courses on average, IMHO.

BTW Gene, in my old municipality, we had that ordinance on the books with the term, "mopery with intent to gawk".

[Gene Greco]

RJ:

  "Mopery with intent to gawk" is exactly how to describe my day at the beach today in Southampton.

A plethora of Goodale/Michelin three stars.

[DJames]

Gentlemen:

Compared to most who post on this board, I've yet to even make neophyte status in terms of the study of golf course architecture.  

That said, this year, I paid more attention to the courses than the players when I watched "the opens" played on the courses on British Isles over the last three weeks.

The enormous difference in course design hit me like a load of bricks (okay, remember I said almost a neophyte).  

I realize that, in the US, there are vast differences in terrain and weather coast to coast and north to south.  Even though I can't prove it, because I haven't done the research, I'm inclined to think that in the early days of golf course architecture here in the US, assumptions were made regarding "US tastes" such that golf course architecture was skewed more toward landscape architecture -- emphasizing the "visual" and "lush" follage.  Also, from a historical reference, the citizens of this "New World" had no interest in replicating the look and feel of the "Old World."

IMHO, the superficial focus of eye candy has diluted the use of terrain (meaning just the soil) and topography to create strategic golf.

Most of the inland areas of the US have forests that don't exist on many of the links courses of the British Isles, but even with that difference, most US golf courses have way too many trees.

My $0.02 for what its worth.